Francis Bret Harte: Verses about Food

Oh, say, have you seen at the Willows so green--
So charming and rurally true--
A singular bird, with a manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian Emeu?
Have you
Ever seen this Australian Emeu?

It trots all around with its head on the ground,
Or erects it quite out of your view;
And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy,
'Oh! what a sweet pretty Emeu!
Oh! do
Just look at that lovely Emeu!'

One day to this spot, when the weather was hot,
Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue;
And beside her there came a youth of high name,--
Augustus Florell Montague:
The two
Both loved that wild, foreign Emeu.

With two loaves of bread then they fed it, instead
Of the flesh of the white Cockatoo,
Which once was its food in that wild neighborhood
Where ranges the sweet Kangaroo,
That too
Is game for the famous Emeu!

Old saws and gimlets but its appetite whets,
Like the world-famous bark of Peru;
There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard,
And nothing its taste will eschew
That you
Can give that long-legged Emeu!

The time slipped away in this innocent play,
When up jumped the bold Montague:
'Where's that specimen pin that I gayly did win
In raffle, and gave unto you,
Fortescue?'
No word spoke the guilty Emeu!

'Quick! tell me his name whom thou gavest that same,
Ere these hands in thy blood I imbrue!'
'Nay, dearest,' she cried, as she clung to his side,
'I'm innocent as that Emeu!'
'Adieu!'
He replied, 'Miss M. H. Fortescue!'

Down she dropped at his feet, all as white as a sheet,
As wildly he fled from her view;
He thought 'twas her sin,--for he knew not the pin
Had been gobbled up by the Emeu;
All through
The voracity of that Emeu!

Oh, you're the girl lives on the corner? Come in--if you want to--
come quick!
There's no one but me in the house, and the cook--but she's only a
stick.
Don't try the front way, but come over the fence--through the
window--that's how.
Don't mind the big dog--he won't bite you--just see him obey me!
there, now!

What's your name? Mary Ellen? How funny! Mine's Edith--it's
nicer, you see;
But yours does for you, for you're plainer, though maybe you're
gooder than me;
For Jack says I'm sometimes a devil, but Jack, of all folks, needn't
talk,
For I don't call the seamstress an angel till Ma says the poor thing
must 'walk.'

Come in! It's quite dark in the parlor, for sister will keep the
blinds down,
For you know her complexion is sallow like yours, but she isn't as
brown;
Though Jack says that isn't the reason she likes to sit here with
Jim Moore.
Do you think that he meant that she kissed him? Would you--if your
lips wasn't sore?

If you like, you can try our piano. 'Tain't ours. A man left it
here
To rent by the month, although Ma says he hasn't been paid for a
year.
Sister plays--oh, such fine variations!--why, I once heard a
gentleman say
That she didn't mind THAT for the music--in fact, it was just in her
way!

Ain't I funny? And yet it's the queerest of all that, whatever I
say,
One half of the folks die a-laughing, and the rest, they all look
t'other way.
And some say, 'That child!' Do they ever say that to such people as
you?
Though maybe you're naturally silly, and that makes your eyes so
askew.

Now stop--don't you dare to be crying! Just as sure as you live, if
you do,
I'll call in my big dog to bite you, and I'll make my Papa kill you,
too!
And then where'll you be? So play pretty. There's my doll, and a
nice piece of cake.
You don't want it--you think it is poison! Then I'LL eat it, dear,
just for your sake!

'So she's here, your unknown Dulcinea, the lady you met on the train,
And you really believe she would know you if you were to meet her
again?'

'Of course,' he replied, 'she would know me; there never was
womankind yet
Forgot the effect she inspired. She excuses, but does not forget.'

'Then you told her your love?' asked the elder. The younger looked
up with a smile:
'I sat by her side half an hour--what else was I doing the while?

'What, sit by the side of a woman as fair as the sun in the sky,
And look somewhere else lest the dazzle flash back from your own to
her eye?

'No, I hold that the speech of the tongue be as frank and as bold as
the look,
And I held up herself to herself,--that was more than she got from
her book.'

'Young blood!' laughed the elder; 'no doubt you are voicing the mode
of To-Day:
But then we old fogies at least gave the lady some chance for delay.

'There's my wife (you must know),--we first met on the journey from
Florence to Rome:
It took me three weeks to discover who was she and where was her home;

'Three more to be duly presented; three more ere I saw her again;
And a year ere my romance BEGAN where yours ended that day on the
train.'

'Oh, that was the style of the stage-coach; we travel to-day by
express;
Forty miles to the hour,' he answered, 'won't admit of a passion
that's less.'

'But what if you make a mistake?' quoth the elder. The younger half
sighed.
'What happens when signals are wrong or switches misplaced?' he
replied.

'Very well, I must bow to your wisdom,' the elder returned, 'but
submit
Your chances of winning this woman your boldness has bettered no whit.

'Why, you do not at best know her name. And what if I try your ideal
With something, if not quite so fair, at least more en regle and real?

'Let me find you a partner. Nay, come, I insist--you shall follow--
this way.
My dear, will you not add your grace to entreat Mr. Rapid to stay?

'My wife, Mr. Rapid-- Eh, what! Why, he's gone--yet he said he
would come.
How rude! I don't wonder, my dear, you are properly crimson and
dumb!'

(SIERRAS, 1876)


DRAMATIS PERSONAE

First Tourist
Second Tourist
Yuba Bill, Driver
A Stranger


FIRST TOURIST

Look how the upland plunges into cover,
Green where the pines fade sullenly away.
Wonderful those olive depths! and wonderful, moreover--

SECOND TOURIST

The red dust that rises in a suffocating way.

FIRST TOURIST

Small is the soul that cannot soar above it,
Cannot but cling to its ever-kindred clay:
Better be yon bird, that seems to breathe and love it--

SECOND TOURIST

Doubtless a hawk or some other bird of prey.
Were we, like him, as sure of a dinner
That on our stomachs would comfortably stay;
Or were the fried ham a shade or two just thinner,
That must confront us at closing of the day:
Then might you sing like Theocritus or Virgil,
Then might we each make a metrical essay;
But verse just now--I must protest and urge--ill
Fits a digestion by travel led astray.

CHORUS OF PASSENGERS

Speed, Yuba Bill! oh, speed us to our dinner!
Speed to the sunset that beckons far away.

SECOND TOURIST

William of Yuba, O Son of Nimshi, hearken!
Check thy profanity, but not thy chariot's play.
Tell us, O William, before the shadows darken,
Where, and, oh! how we shall dine? O William, say!

YUBA BILL

It ain't my fault, nor the Kumpeney's, I reckon,
Ye can't get ez square meal ez any on the Bay,
Up at you place, whar the senset 'pears to beckon--
Ez thet sharp allows in his airy sort o' way.
Thar woz a place wor yer hash ye might hev wrestled,
Kept by a woman ez chipper ez a jay--
Warm in her breast all the morning sunshine nestled;
Red on her cheeks all the evening's sunshine lay.

SECOND TOURIST

Praise is but breath, O chariot compeller!
Yet of that hash we would bid you farther say.

YUBA BILL

Thar woz a snipe--like you, a fancy tourist--
Kem to that ranch ez if to make a stay,
Ran off the gal, and ruined jist the purist
Critter that lived--

STRANGER (quietly)

You're a liar, driver!

YUBA BILL (reaching for his revolver).

Eh!
Here take my lines, somebody--

CHORUS OF PASSENGERS

Hush, boys! listen!
Inside there's a lady! Remember! No affray!

YUBA BILL

Ef that man lives, the fault ain't mine or his'n.

STRANGER

Wait for the sunset that beckons far away,
Then--as you will! But, meantime, friends, believe me,
Nowhere on earth lives a purer woman; nay,
If my perceptions do surely not deceive me,
She is the lady we have inside to-day.
As for the man--you see that blackened pine tree,
Up which the green vine creeps heavenward away!
He was that scarred trunk, and she the vine that sweetly
Clothed him with life again, and lifted--

SECOND TOURIST

Yes; but pray
How know you this?

STRANGER

She's my wife.

YUBA BILL

The h-ll you say!